ABU DHABI // Albie Sachs, who was appointed by Nelson Mandela to South Africa’s Constitutional Court, was visiting Abu Dhabi when he heard the news that the former South African president had died.
“We’ve been waiting for a long time now and, when it came, it was kind of a shock,” said Mr Sachs, a comrade of Mandela’s during the struggle against apartheid.
“Mandela was part of the generation of wonderful African leaders.”
Back in 1952, Mr Sachs, who will speak tonight at the InterContinental Hotel, was a second-year law student and part of the “black movement”, of which Mandela was the volunteering chief.
“He was like my leader,” he said. “He wasn’t well known then but he was very important. He wasn’t just a lawyer who defended people but he defended justice.”
He said Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, Desmond Tutu and Mandela made up an important culture in South Africa.
“With four fantastic figures like that, it’s not just brilliant individuals, it’s a culture,” he said.
“Mandela embodied that culture more beautifully than anybody else.
“He didn’t create the process of the new South Africa, he led it. It’s a culture of millions and they articulated it.” Mr Sachs said the struggle against apartheid was one of decades and Mandela emerged as the most outstanding personality in that struggle.
“He provided particularly dignified and refined leadership,” he said.
“He will be remembered as the person who knew when it was right to be a soldier, when it was right to be a negotiator, and when it was right to be a president.
“He was willing to fight, to give his life and his liberty at the same time. He always believed in talking and negotiations and he was a great healer as well as a person who made everybody feel welcome and everybody worth listening to.”
Nahtam, an Abu Dhabi-based humanitarian organisation, was chosen by Mandela through the UN to get people involved in community work.
“It was his wish and we took up the initiative in the UAE,” said George Itty, Nahtam’s chief executive. “We were supposed to meet him six months ago but he got very sick.”
The organisation published a book of inspiring stories to celebrate Mandela’s work two years ago.
“This book has been translated into Arabic,” said Mr Itty. “We were supposed to take it to Mandela but, instead, we will inaugurate it here in Abu Dhabi.”
Mr Sachs’s lecture, Fifty years With Mandela: From Lawbreaker to Lawmaker, is at the InterContinental Hotel from 6.30pm to 8pm.
cmalek@thenational.ae
Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO
Manchester United 1 (Greenwood 77')
Everton 1 (Lindelof 36' og)
History's medical milestones
1799 - First small pox vaccine administered
1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery
1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases
1895 - Discovery of x-rays
1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1953 - Structure of DNA discovered
1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place
1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill
1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.
1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out
Brief scores
Barcelona 2
Pique 36', Alena 87'
Villarreal 0
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: 3S Money
Started: 2018
Based: London
Founders: Ivan Zhiznevsky, Eugene Dugaev and Andrei Dikouchine
Sector: FinTech
Investment stage: $5.6 million raised in total
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
Kill
Director: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Starring: Lakshya, Tanya Maniktala, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya, Raghav Juyal
Rating: 4.5/5
Sam Smith
Where: du Arena, Abu Dhabi
When: Saturday November 24
Rating: 4/5
Yahya Al Ghassani's bio
Date of birth: April 18, 1998
Playing position: Winger
Clubs: 2015-2017 – Al Ahli Dubai; March-June 2018 – Paris FC; August – Al Wahda
Company Profile
Name: Direct Debit System
Started: Sept 2017
Based: UAE with a subsidiary in the UK
Industry: FinTech
Funding: Undisclosed
Investors: Elaine Jones
Number of employees: 8
